LEADER is one of those subjects where the general answer and the answer for a specific case diverge, and the thread will go in circles until someone says which one is being asked for.
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Evidence · Journal club · continued
Journal club: LEADER as the historical anchor posts 31–60
This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
Post #30 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction.
For anyone finding this later: the short answer on LEADER is that it depends on one thing, and the rest of the thread is people identifying which thing.
Narrowing post #31, because the general version has more than one answer.
Sessions on negative or null results are consistently the most instructive and the hardest to get anyone to attend.
I am reporting what happened, not recommending it.
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cannula_notes, post #25: What I want from this LEADER thread is the list of things that would need to be true for the claim to hold. If we can write that list, we can check it. Go to post
Practical note on LEADER: write down what you expect before you look. The number of times I have found what I went looking for is higher than chance would allow.
k.roos, post #30: The figures usually contain the finding and the text usually contains the interpretation. Separating them for the first twenty minutes is a discipline worth keeping. That has held every time I have looked, which is not the same as always. Go to post
The most common failure mode is spending fifty minutes on the effect size and ten on the population. Reversing that ratio would improve most sessions.
i.grimaldi, post #4: The opening post answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different. The baseline characteristics table is the single most useful page for the questions that get asked here, because it tells you who the result applies to. It took me longer than it should have to see that. Go to post
Adding the boring version of LEADER, because the interesting version keeps getting posted and the boring one is usually right.
Check the ordinary explanations, in order, and stop when one of them accounts for what you are seeing. Most of the time the second one does.
i.broberg, post #24: Two questions I would want answered before drawing anything from the LEADER data above: how were the cases selected, and what happened to the ones that dropped out. Go to post
Answering the question post #34 raises rather than the one it answers.
Two things can be true about LEADER at once: the mechanism is plausible and the evidence for the size of the effect is thin. Most of the argument here is people defending the first against attacks on the second.
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The baseline characteristics table is the single most useful page for the questions that get asked here, because it tells you who the result applies to.
That is where I would start, not where I would stop.
Where the group cannot agree, record the disagreement rather than resolving it by seniority. The recorded disagreement is more honest and more useful later.
Happy to be the one who is wrong here if it settles the question.
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LEADER is a good example of a question where the honest answer is boring and the interesting answers are unsupported. I would go with boring.
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This follows post #40 rather than contradicting it.
Adding a small correction to the LEADER summary above rather than a disagreement with it. The substance holds; one of the figures is out by a factor that matters.
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y.asante, post #19: The most common failure mode is spending fifty minutes on the effect size and ten on the population. Reversing that ratio would improve most sessions. Go to post
Reading order that works for these sessions: registry entry, methods, baseline table, primary result, then abstract last. Reading the abstract first anchors everything that follows.
The figures usually contain the finding and the text usually contains the interpretation. Separating them for the first twenty minutes is a discipline worth keeping.
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BDraganov, post #35: The most common failure mode is spending fifty minutes on the effect size and ten on the population. Reversing that ratio would improve most sessions. Go to post
Picking up post #43: that is the part I would want checked first.
LEADER: I have looked for the primary source twice and failed twice. Either it does not exist or it is somewhere I do not know to look, and I would like to know which.
cannula_notes, post #25: What I want from this LEADER thread is the list of things that would need to be true for the claim to hold. If we can write that list, we can check it. Go to post
Grateful for the specificity. Vague answers to this question are what sent me looking.
On LEADER the community has more anecdote than the confidence in this thread implies, and I include my own contribution in that.
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This follows post #50 rather than contradicting it.
The baseline characteristics table is the single most useful page for the questions that get asked here, because it tells you who the result applies to.
A partial answer, offered because a partial answer beats none.
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Where the group cannot agree, record the disagreement rather than resolving it by seniority. The recorded disagreement is more honest and more useful later.
Posted with less confidence than the sentence structure implies.
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Worth stating the null on LEADER before we explain it: the observation may be nothing. That possibility deserves a sentence and usually does not get one.
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y.asante, post #19: The most common failure mode is spending fifty minutes on the effect size and ten on the population. Reversing that ratio would improve most sessions. Go to post
Coming back to post #52, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.
My position on LEADER is current rather than settled. I have revised it once already and I expect to again, so treat it accordingly.
s.kravchenko, post #43: Reading order that works for these sessions: registry entry, methods, baseline table, primary result, then abstract last. Reading the abstract first anchors everything that follows. Go to post
Sessions on negative or null results are consistently the most instructive and the hardest to get anyone to attend.
This is the sort of thing that ought to be settled and apparently is not.
I had read the opposite somewhere and cannot now find where, which tells me something.
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Post #54 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
If you are new and reading this thread for the answer to LEADER: the answer is conditional, the conditions are in the third reply, and the rest of the thread is worth skipping.
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I read post #57 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.
Offering a way to settle LEADER rather than another opinion about it. Two measurements, taken the same way, a fortnight apart. If the difference is within the noise, the question was not answerable at this precision.
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Post #57 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.
The most useful reply I ever got about LEADER was a request to state my units. It sounds like pedantry and it has saved me twice.
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